Frontiers in biotechnology hold vast promise

By Thomas Gelsthorpe

Wednesday

Mar 22, 2017 at 2:00 AMMar 22, 2017 at 7:54 AM

Material advantages have been provided mainly by optimists. Wholesome, widely available foods, reliable electricity, and faster, safer transportation are among the most obvious. For nonscientists and nongeniuses (that's most of us), the spiritual and moral advantages of optimism over pessimism are even greater.

Optimists believe a brighter future is likely, with centuries of demonstrable progress to use as a model. Setbacks can be shrugged off as mere bumps in the road. Pessimists, especially doomsday prophets so vocal nowadays, can only win by losing, with slim, sour prospects for gloating: "See? I told you so!" When doomsday predictions flop, and things go well instead, pessimists have to admit another defeat.

Optimists continue to forge breakthroughs that improve conditions for people and wildlife. The State University of New York (SUNY) College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) in Syracuse is near success for a long-sought remedy to the near-extinction of the American chestnut. Career-length teamwork by scientists at SUNY/ESF have added one gene to the 38,000 naturally occurring chestnut genes, and enabled seedlings to resist the blight that wiped out American chestnuts a century ago.

Before the blight, chestnut was the dominant tree in hardwood forests covering much of the eastern United States. Chestnuts formed pure stands in favored areas, and occupied about 25 percent of the hardwood forest overall. To picture chestnuts' former importance, walk into an oak forest and visualize one tree out of every four. Chestnuts are among the fastest-growing, widest, native trees. Only sycamores and tulip trees -- still thriving but never dominant -- reached greater average sizes. Recolonizing mixed forests with blight-proof chestnuts bodes well for forest health, and faster rates of absorbing carbon dioxide. Instead of imported "chestnuts roasting on an open fire," American chestnuts could recapture markets.

Majestic chestnuts were cherished by people, wild and domestic animals who ate the nuts, and they supplied lumber of the highest quality for construction and furniture. Chestnut wood is honey-colored, lightweight, easily worked, durable and holds a finish well. While chestnuts' dominance was still taken for granted, Massachusetts poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow opens "The Village Blacksmith" like so:

"Under a spreading chestnut treeThe village smithy stands,The smith, a mighty man is he,With large and sinewy hands;And the muscles of his brawny armsAre strong as iron bands."

I share a sentimental/poetic streak about chestnuts. My brother lived in a house, built in 1795 as a blacksmith shop, entirely of chestnut: walls, floors, studs, ceilings, the works. Maybe Longfellow saw the place. During long-ago adventures in the antique business, I admired many a chestnut chest, and once came across a stack of chestnut planks stored in a barn. Exquisite wood. I didn't make a dining room table from them, but I should have tried.

Sinclair Lewis, the first American awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature, wrote a novel "Arrowsmith" about a research doctor battling a plague on a Caribbean island -- a foretaste of life-saving biotechnologies still advancing as we speak.

Ongoing developments promise far more than the revival of one cherished species. They point towards preventatives for bugs and diseases that wiped out American elms, and caused the Irish potato famine. Early in my farming years, I planted disease-resistant elms to shade my house and barn. I won't live long enough to know if they succeed, because elm disease waits until trees are mature. Further advances might regenerate for future generations the elm-lined streets of the American towns of my youth.

Gene-splicing is already delivering advances in forestry, agriculture, animal husbandry, and medicine. Don't succumb to pessimism about "Frankenfoods." Doomsday scenarios have not materialized, and are becoming less likely as techniques become more precise. Nourish biotech's promises. Hope that our brightest and most ambitious minds pursue new breakthroughs.